| Important Dates in History-2 | |
| Date | Event |
| 1456 | Johann Gutenberg (1400-1468) published the first mass-produced edition of the Bible in Mainz, Germany. |
| October 12, 1492 | Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) set sail on September 6, 1492 from Castille, Spain with three ships— the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. His expedition landed at San Salvador in the West Indies on October 12, 1492 as he discovers a “New World.” |
| October 31, 1517 | Martin Luther (1483-1546) nailed to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral “95 Theses Against the Sale of Indulgences” detailing the abuses of the Roman Church. This act marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in Germany. |
| 1687 | Isaac Newton (1643-1727) published the Principia where he developed the three laws of motion, demonstrated the structure of the universe, the movement of the planets, and calculated the mass of the heavenly bodies. |
| July 4, 1776 | The 13 colonies in America met in Philadelphia to sign their Declaration of Independence, declaring themselves free of British rule and taxation. |
| July 14, 1789 | The French middle class stormed the Bastille, capturing the royal fortress in Paris, and starting the French Revolution. |
| May 18, 1804 | Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) lifted the crown from the Pope's hands and crowned himself Emperor at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He would defeat the Russian & Austrian armies at Austerlitz in December 1805, the Prussians at Jena in 1806, and the Austrians at Friedland in 1807. |
| June 19, 1815 | Napoleon defeated at Waterloo by Duke Wellington and was exiled to St. Helena where he died on May 8, 1821. |
| February 23, 1848 | A revolution in Paris brought the expulsion of King Louis-Philippe and established a Second Republic in France under Louis Napoleon (1808-1873). In this year of revolutions, Prince Metternich fled Vienna to England. Pope Pius IX fled from Rome. |
| July 8, 1853 | US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry (1794-1858) sailed into Edo Bay, and demanded Japan open its harbors to American trade. The Treaty of Kanagawa was signed on March 31, 1854 to bring Japan's closed feudal monarchy into the world community. |
| November 24, 1859 | Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published The Origin of Species, stating that species evolved because nature selected those animals and plants best suited to specific environments. |
| April 12, 1861 | The Confederacy attacked an US Army post at Fort Sumter, starting the American Civil War. The four-year war resulted in the death of 364,511 Union troops & 133,821 Confederates. |
| April 15, 1865 | President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) assassinated at Ford's Theater, Washington DC, by John Wilkes Booth only six days after the end of the Civil War when General Lee surrendered to Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. |
| January 18, 1871 | Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) became the Chancellor of the German Empire after defeating the French in the Franco-Prussian War. |
| March 6, 1876 | “Come here, Watson, I want you.” were the first words transmitted through a receiver connected to a transmitter that Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) had designed as the telephone. |
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